Because I'm a girl
by GeorgiaScarlett
Summary: What would growing up be like if Luffy was a girl? Facing discrimination and the belief that women are worthless, but although most discriminate, there are those who support her and grow to be her closest friends. Rated T for inevitable bad language, violence and topic. Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece.
1. Prologue

Night had cast it's shadow over the Goa Kingdom but a certain shack on a mountain would never scum to tranquility. Every night was the same, there was a fight for food and what was meant to be a squabble would quickly turn into a full on brawl as everyone was too stubborn to back down. Luffy sighed, normal people would say that they were unpredictable but really, it was the antithesis: predictable. This time, Ace and Duddan were fighting over who broke one of the floor board. This however, wasn't what she was sighing at. _'I'm never going to make it_,' she thought to herself and left the room to get some fresh night air, it was probably cold but she didn't feel it, they were still fighting inside but she couldn't hear them. All she could think about was think about going to Marine headquarters in the morning. _'Why do I have to go? I'm only seven._' She let out another sigh and stalked back inside and into bed.

"Wake up runt!" Morning light slid it's way into Luffy's eyes, too bright to be welcome, not her Grandfather's rude awakening was any better.

"_Why?_" She groaned with effort.

"We're going on a tour round a Marine base remember?" Luffy fell back onto her pillow

"Don't wanna" Garp grabbed her by the collar and dragged her up. "Fine," She muttered, whilst picking up her brush and stroked it down her chest-long hair "But I'm not wearing anything fancy."

"Don't expect you to!" Garp laughed imagining Luffy wearing a pink frilly dress with a solemn expression which ended with a brush to his face. Luffy smiled with contempt and walked out for breakfast.

* * *

When they arrived, Luffy was greeted with a typical marine building that towered over them. She had never seen one in person before and was not impressed with the standard architecture. And the short journey told her it was the nearest base around. They got through with ease and Garp guided her to a group of upper class men with their children.

"Why isn't Ace coming?" She asked.

"He wont get along with the other kids and I want _you _to decide what you want to do when you grow up without him twisting your thoughts," this made Luffy cringe but she understood and didn't press further, would Ace complain?

"Well well, what do we have hear?" One of the men spoke, disrupting her thoughts.

"You are looking at one of the future admirals." Garp said in her place "Her name is Luffy."

"Admiral?" He spat back. "But she's a _girl._" Resentment built up in her stomach and her face reddened with fury as everyone else laughed. One of the boys walked up to her with a smug look on his face.

"I'm starting training as soon as I can so I can get the highest position possible but at least I know what's out of my reach," he scoffed "unlike you." Luffy's fist clenched and her hat covered her eyes. Another little sod was saying something else to her and she couldn't keep it in any longer. Her fist sliced through the air and landed a firm hit to his cheek, the impact threw him at least ten yards from where she stood. The crowd stepped back stunned and silent, at least they weren't mocking her. The rest of the tour was fine after that, if not bit boring but the memories kept swirling round her head, overlapping and replaying. How foes being a girl make you any different?

"There has been a slight...change of plan." Garp told her, scratching the back of his head. I spoke to a few friends and instead of training in the mountains with me and Ace, you will be going to a school." Luffy's face darkened.

"This is because I'm a girl isn't it?"

"No! absolutely not it's just... Anyway, I'm sure you'll get on fine" Luffy walked as away far away as she could get, but since they just got on a ship, she couldn't walk very far and found herself looking in-between the rails and over the sea, she never wanted to be a marine, she had the hat to prove it but she offended none the less. '_He can lie all he wants but I know the truth. It's because I'm a girl._'


	2. First Day

**Hi everyone! since I was in such a hurry to write the prologue, I forgot to this bit that barely anyone will read! This is not my first story but it is my first on this account (my old one is TheIcyFeather and there are some new reviews that I need to respond to! 0_0) and I STILL cant upload the cover that I drew this morning, it only took a few minuets but I'm still disappointed. I would also like to point out that I'm not American so I will probably change things with school. But anyway, thank you leroalice, iiILurvePancakesii, PirateDragons1211, mugiwara-cristal and NamikazeMia for your support! Please review/ favorite/whatever. Disclaimer, I do not own One Piece, only the drawing that I am proud of/ disappointed by. Please enjoy! **

* * *

Luffy hid behind her Grandpa as he walked her to her new school, it was bigger than she'd thought it would be but it's size was all in length as it didn't have any levels, probably for the kids' safety. It was built with sleek stone walls and two buildings that formed the shape of a hollow square with a grass field in the middle and playgrounds on both sides. It was a well presented building. They walked to the reception room where one of the teachers stood.

"Hello, my name is Miss Tashigi," she said with a smile, "I'll be your main teacher here at Goa Elementary. Since you're new and have no former education, you'll have to fill in a form." She handed her the sheet of paper and a pen then lead her into a classroom.

"Have fun and try to get along with all of the other kids," Garp pleaded, then left through the doors they came through. She sat down on a cheep plastic chair and studied the paper.

"Can you read?" Tashigi asked '_Do you always put on that fake voice?_'

"Yes," she answered instead oin an equally light hearted, plastic voice. She looked back down at the paper and filled in the form, most questions were tings like name and age, then came questions about future goals and dreams, Luffy decided not to put down that she wanted to be a pirate as the school was mainly run by the Marines and she would rather not sit through a lecture, so instead, she said that she wanted to be a doctor. Fair enough right? Other than that, she answered honestly; she was a poor orphan who lived with bandits and adopted brothers in a run down shack subjected to domestic violence, it sounded a lot worse than it was, but it was the truth as well as her way to punish her Grandpa for sending her to such an awful place. But then one of the questions hit her hard: _What are your main talents? _She looked back to were the teacher had stood but she wasn't there. What was she going to write? She had to be good at something bur as hard as she thought, nothing came to her. Minuets or hours passed, but she still couldn't think of anything. _'Talentless,' _the thought, it was true, so that's what she put. She handed the paper inand was escorted to another classroom, this time filled with children of her age. Laughter filled the room as Miss Tashigi tried to settle the class, only now did she realize that she was so young _'must be fresh from training.'_ She caught sight of her and hearded her to an empty seat on the second row, the others didn't seem to notice.

"Listen up class! We have a new student today. Please be nice to her and help her whenever you can." The other students stopped talking and looked at her as she sat down. On her left, sat a green haired boy sat back on his sat with his arms behind his head, he didn't seem to notice her, or what the teacher was saying. "Zoro!" Miss Tashigi called, "Please listen and sit up straight!" Zoro sat up reluctantly and looked Luffy in the eyes

"Hi, I'm Zoro, nice to meet you," he introduced, Luffy couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not so she just smiled at him nervously.

"Her name is Luffy and her Grandfather is the esteemed hero of the Marines, Garp 'The Fist'." All eyes were on her now and she pulled her head down to her chest, blushing.

"Nice to meet you," they all cried out in a painfully, just slightly out of time unison and Miss Tashigi went back to teaching. Luffy got out her new notebook and looked at the clock, she arrived at nine and it was already half past ten, she had spent wa too long thinking about that question. She wrote down all of the notes she could, she didn't need to understand them for she could do that at home but all of this was so new to her and couldn't afford not to learn.

"What are you doing?" Zoro chuckled, Luffy shivered.

"W-What do you mean?"

"Look at your work and you'll see." Luffy tilted her head in confusion before looking down.

"AHHHH!" Shit, this it bad, her handwriting started off passable for a seven year old, but further down, it got worse until it was a series on unidentifiable scribbles.

"Is there a problem?" Miss Tashigi asked

"Oh, no. Sorry," with that, she turned back to the chalkboard without question. Zoro on the other hand was barely keeping his laughter in. She gave the boy a scowl and went back to work, copying the board word from word as the teacher explained her actions, Luffy didn't even know what subject this was.

"...and that concludes our lesson." Miss Tashigi concluded. "Now we will be going on to studying a play written by one of the worlds' most successful writers, Mailliw Eraepsekahs."* She turned away from the board, took out a stack of books from the cupboard and handed them out to each student. "This will be a group discussion but I will start you off, please turn to page 12 and read Romira and Julio." Luffy obeyed and read the script, it was about two lovers who could never be together and took two minuets of reading before remembering Dudan and the other mountain bandits performing it. She giggled at the memory and felt a stab of grief in her chest as she remembered why she was even here and her smile quickly turned into a frown. After a few more minuets, Miss Tashigi spoke again.

"Assuming that you've all read the script and most likely, saw or read it before, I will summarize. The play is about Romira and Julio who's families are at war and in this war, forbidden love bloomed. But as they were from different houses, their families would never allowed it so they made a plan to run away together after Jolio's cousin was killed by Romira's house. After that, you should know what happened as it involves a lot of death and you are a vary..._interesting _class." At this, the class let out cries of agreement and the teacher continued, "Get into groups of three and discuss your opinions of the poem." Luffy was thrown off her seat and by Zoro's, she assumed it was him but her gaze met a new face.

"Hi, I'm Nami. I sit behind Zoro so if yu need me..." Nami gave her a wink, "...I'll help you out. I'm not a genius or anything but I'm certainly smarter than Zoro here!" Zoro sighed and closed his book.

"I guess we're not discussing work then," he smirked "But Nami has taken a liking to so why don't you hang out with us at lunch? We'll show you our usual spots and other friends-"

"Yeah! I've got to introduce you to Vivi, Usopp and Chopper!" Nami insisted excitedly.

"That sounds great!" Luffy agreed feeling more enthusiastic and optimistic. For the rest of that lesson, the group talked about anything and everything and all of Luffy's troubles were pushed to the back of her mind.

* * *

"Welcome newcomer, you are in the presence of the amazing CAPTAIN USOPP. If your scared, leave now for your own safety." Not the greeting Luffy had expected, but at least they were friendly.

"So that's Ussop," Zoro pointed out, "Vivi is the girl with blue hair,"

"Nice no meet you," the girl welcomed.

"And this is Chopper!" Nami called, holding a small dog-raccoon.

"Ah! He's so cute!" Luffy laughed

"I am NOT cute!" Chopper jumped out of Nami's arms and transformed into some kind of monkey. Luffy's face lightened, she remembered Shanks telling her about the different abilities of devil fruits

"You have one to!?" She burst out, everyone else looked shocked.

"You meen to say that you ate a devil fruit?" Usopp pressed, so close that his un-naturally long nose bent against her face

"EW GROSS!" She shrieked, instinctively punching him in his stomach and after jumped back in a fighting stance. Again, all but Zoro looked shocked.

"Oh yeah, forgot to say that her Grandpa is a Vice-Admiral," he said nonchalantly as Usopp collapsed to the floor, "Luffy, what devil fruit do you have?"

"The Gomo Gomo fruit, I'm made of rubber," she looked down at the kid on the floor, clutching is stomach, "Is he going to be alright?"

"You'll be surprised," replied Vivi "Most of it's an act to get attention."

After the bell rang, she spent the rest of the school dat working hard and played with her new friends at lunch. School wasn't as bad as she had thought it would be, if anything, she enjoyed it and at the end of the day, she skipped home telling Garp about it all. She was still mad at him for making her go, but didn't want to start another argument.

" By the way, I'm leaving in the morning, so Ace and Sabo will take you to school in the morning," he said out of the blue.

"Ok," she whispered, with her hat covering her face. She knew better than to argue because it wouldn't change anything but she would never know when he would come back. When they finally opened the door to the shack, a plate was thrown out and in-between them.

"DON'T SAY THAT EVER AGAIN, GOT IT!?" Dudan screeched at one of the two boys who were armed with wooden spoons. Garp cleared his throat.

"ENOUGH!" All was silent and weapons back in the draw. When they came back though, her brothers were high in spirits and bombarded her with questions. She briefly explained her day but with an obvious distaste, afterall, she was dumb and anything but hard working when it came to academics.

"You'll get used to is," Sabo assured, "It's always tough at first."

"But don't you think it's unfair that we stay here with freedom and train whilst Luffy has to go to a school because she's a girl?" Ace retorted. Luffy's eyes widened with horror, she never told them why she was going.

"You know?" She mumbled grimly.

"Uh, yeah...we overheard a conversation between Gramps and Dudan," Ace explained, "That's why we were fighting just now." Again, dark thoughts drowned her mind _'Dudan's a girl too, shouldn't she agree with me?'_

* * *

**Thank you for reading this (*) If you haven't noticed, Mailliw Eraepsekahs is William Shakespeare in reverse; I know it's bad but they wouldn't have had him so I changed both his name and one of his plays (Romeo and Juliet). Hope you enjoyed this chapter and the next will be up soon, bye!**


	3. My story

**Whoop, the new chapter is here! Thank you Rhyme13kh14Xion8, Style1234,pensuka, theyuyu96, DMCP, NamikazeMia, Terrie1234, catyscitty and eitak123 and the anonymous guest for your support. I am not the pirate Queen and haven't found One Piece; I own nothing. I have nothing more to say excepted I've got the sniffles and an annoying song stuck in my head so enjoy!**

* * *

It had been three weeks since Luffy enrolled in her new school and the school play was coming up soon.

"So what are you doing today?" Asked Ace curiously, carelessly dodging puddles and twizzling his umbrella. They never really spoke of school much so the question took her by surprise.

"The school play is soon so we're auditioning for the folktale 'The Mirror of Matsuyama.' Why do you ask?" Ace broke eye contact and choked a bit.

"Well, it's just that you don't seem happy with school and I thought...maybe there was something you didn't like, that's all."

"Then why was it so hard for you to explain?" She continued coolly.

"What are you talking about, I did explain didn't I? Besides, I don't have the slightest idea of what you even do in these prisons-I mean schools." Something was obviously odd about his attitude but what why? _'I bet this is Grandpa's doing. No, it can't be, he's been gone fore ages. Dudan maybe? I can't stand this." _Luffy stopped walking and glared at her brother furiously.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT!?" She demanded, _slightly _louder and crackly than she had expected; as expected, Ace was stunned, wide eyed and practically speechless.

"What... w-where did that come from? I'm sorry if I offended you."

"I bet it's all dandy for you, who's happiness was served to him on a silver platter, but reject it out of ignorance and claim that you're so hard fucking done by! Yu don't even understand how lucky you are, do you? Only because you're the son of a man you have never even met, you claim that everyone hates you and that you wish you were never born. Well guess what Ace, there are people who are far worse off than you, so just stop it. Stop your petty depression. Stop being so awkward and stop trying to reassure me about something you don't even understand. For your information, school is fine but being a week little sister who's too dumb to keep up with class and has no talents doesn't exactly break the stereotypes!" '_Talentless, why di I keep thinking about that?'_

She turned round, thoughtlessly and ran. She didn't know where exactly she was going but she never stopped. Corners passed by and the landscape eventually turned bare. Sheep paddocks dotted the hills and windmills by them. Luffy let out a warm smile at the familiar sight but turned to run into the woods as she could hear another set of running feet in the distance and didn't want to be seen; she needed time to herself.

"Luffy!" A faint voice called, she watched from a tree as the villagers gathered round with worried looks on their faces. She tucked a lock of jet hair behind her ear and disappeared further in the trees and curled up by one. She was drenched and filthy was added to the things to describe her when she sat down, but she couldn't care less, all she wanted was five minuets of silence, a silence that she could never get at school or at home. After a while, she decided it was best to go back to school an apologize to Ace when it ended, after all, it wasn't his fault that she was angry _'but first, I'd better do something about these clothes...' _

So an hour later she arrived at school with damp, stained clothes and tangled hair. Cold fingers crept down her neck and back when she realized that she was supposed to be a _normal_ school student now and that the teacher would ask questions about why she was a mess and by the look of the sky, very late. With a heavy breath, she opened the main doors and walked to the hall where she the rest of her class sat and by the looks of things, the auditions were still going on. The entire class stared at her with wide eyes and she heard a few gasps, moments later, a kid with bright red hair and a clumsy headband burst into laughter, she must have looked worse than she had thought because he was in tears and rolling on the floor over her appearance.

"That's enough, Kid!" Miss Tashigi snapped, but he only laughed harder when he tried to stop. Luffy walked up to him and gave him the same look that she gave Ace a few hors ago, instantly, he flinched and his laughter turned into more of a cower.

"I'm not in a good mood today so stay out of my way," with that, she walked to where her friends and joined them. When she turned, it wasn't in her usual majestic manner with her hair softly flowing in the wind, more like spiders trying to fly, but either way her message was received and Kid didn't giggle or make any conniving remark.

"Let's take a break for five minuets," Miss Tashigi insisted before pacing up to Luffy and asked for a brief conversation. Reluctantly, she followed her into an office and the cold fingers returned.

"Pleas take a seat," Luffy did as instructed, her teacher sat over her desk and leaned her chin on her hands, eyes piercing and empty. "I understand from your report that your household don't get along, and honestly, I'm not surprised but I just want you to know-"

"Look, you've got it wrong, I-"

"No, don't want to hear it. Just listen. As I was saying, even if this time you did just _stumbled _into a river and stayed there for four hours, there will be a time when you need guidance and someone to share your burdens with. I should know, I too was in a position similar to yours and believe me, shielding your problems will only make them worse. Since we have time, I may as well tell you my story. I was born into a poor family, my mother was an adventurer and my farther, an artist but as not many people were interested in his work, we relied on my Mother for food when she went hunting, she taught me everything there is to know about setting traps and skinning the animal for furs that we sometimes sold. She went out everyday, bringing back many weird and wonderful creatures, sometimes she was gone for less than half an hour, sometimes she was out for weeks, after all she was an adventurer not a hunter. When I was old enough, I attended a low class school that was affordable for my parents and with my Farther slowly going insane, his pictures lacked quality and even less people brought them so we needed all the money we had. For that reason, my parents fought day and night, and my mother was out for long periods of time. Over time, their arguments got worse until they were physically fighting, sometimes they had weapons, however, at school, I never told anyone about my troubles, allowing them to build over time. I also had a sister to look after, we shared our thoughts about the fights, but it never solved anything.

One day...my Mother never returned. After that, I vowed that I wouldn't let any other child to face the dark side of reality; the desperation for food that could only be fulfilled with theft, the violence that spread and burnt like fire, an the dark thoughts that faded all light that use to be so bright."

"Then why do you always seem so happy?" Luffy mumbled. A small smile lifted Miss Tashigi's face ever so slightly.

"Fear of loneliness is far greater than any danger or grief, when you realize that, you appreciate everyone around you."

"Isn't it hard though? I know that men look down on women and putting us below them, as a Marine, how can you bear with that?" Miss Tashigi's face darkened.

"This is what I vowed to protect you and all other children from. You are too young to worry yourself with these problems, they won't affect-or well, they shouldn't affect you at your age. I warn you though, they will and unfortunately the world is a merciless place. By all means, it should not be tolerated but peoples' beliefs aren't easily shaken away, not over night, not over tears, not over bloodshed, bun in time, I believe that the world will sort it's self out and see women as people. The past was a lot worse so be grateful that humanity has come this far."

"I understand," Luffy lied; she could see it in her teacher's dark eyes that she was trying to convince herself more than anyone.

They walked back to the hall and the auditions resumed.

"I hope I get the role of the girl's Mother," Nami cried.

"This is stupid, the original folktale only has three characters, not thirty. You can tell this play will be a disaster," Zoro followed up.

Luffy decided to give her audition her all, it would be fun, "Whatever, I bet they will find some way around it, even if they steel plots and other characters from longer stories. By the way, what roles are next?"

"The girl," Nami replied enthusiastically and her eyes grew when she studie Luffy, "You would be _perfect_ go when she calls for people who want the role. I think they named her Shina since in the story she was only named as 'the girl.'"

Soon enough, Miss Tashigi called for the next actors to the stage and whether it was out of pity or realism, she ended up with the role.


End file.
